|
Suppose this Universe were the direct creation of the
Reason-Principle applying itself, quite unchanged, to Matter,
retaining, that is, the hostility to partition which it derives
from its Prior, the Intellectual Principle- then, this its
product, so produced, would be of supreme and unparalleled
excellence. But the Reason-Principle could not be a thing of
entire identity or even of closely compact diversity; and the
mode in which it is here manifested is no matter of censure since
its function is to be all things, each single thing in some
distinctive way.
But has it not, besides itself entering Matter, brought other
beings down? Has it not for example brought Souls into Matter
and, in adapting them to its creation, twisted them against their
own nature and been the ruin of many of them? And can this be
right?
The answer is that the Souls are, in a fair sense, members of
this Reason-Principle and that it has not adapted them to the
creation by perverting them, but has set them in the place here
to which their quality entitles them.
|
|